


Local Man Fails At Being Flirted With

by seapotato



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Bisexual Disaster Dean Winchester, Bunker Fluff, Courtship, Domestic Brotherhood, Getting Together, M/M, No Spoilers, canon level dean being shy when flirted with, cas is a hunter the way cats are hunters, sam doesn't wash his dishes, they are cute and it's gross, what's a timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24862120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seapotato/pseuds/seapotato
Summary: “It's a gift, Dean. You know. Things that people give each other without any strings attached to say thank you or they're sorry or just because they thought of you.”“Cut the Hallmark crap and tell me what it is and where it came from.” Dean was too tired for this. He had an on and off lingering headache from being punched in the skull by a werewolf two days ago, and he was hangry. He wanted food, he really did, but even only smelling Sam's takeout made him feel a little nauseous.Sam finally put down his container and looked at Dean.“It's from Cas,” he said, and slid a piece of paper across the table, “There's a note.”---Or, Cas starts leaving gifts around the bunker.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 188





	Local Man Fails At Being Flirted With

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt writing for the words "hell, gift, complain"

“What the hell is this?” Dean said.

Sam was eating a late lunch in the bunker's kitchen, reading a yellowed magazine that, judging from the flash of an ad, was from the 60s.

“A present,” Sam said around a mouthful of leftover takeout.

“A what?”

It sure as hell didn't look like a present. It looked like a ziploc bag filled with bloody carrots sitting on top of an ice pack. There was a puddle underneath that Dean knew was going leave a stain. Sam didn't even bother to look up at him, just flipped another page and chewed.

“It's a gift, Dean. You know. Things that people give each other without any strings attached to say thank you or they're sorry or just because they thought of you.”

“Cut the Hallmark crap and tell me what it is and where it came from.” Dean was too tired for this. He had an on and off lingering headache from being punched in the skull by a werewolf two days ago, and he was hangry. He wanted food, he really did, but even only smelling Sam's takeout made him feel a little nauseous.

Sam finally put down his container and looked at Dean.

“It's from Cas,” he said, and slid a piece of paper across the table, “There's a note.”

It's in Cas's careful, precise handwriting. _These are the fingers of a basilisk who took hu_ _man form_ _. They are able to inject venom through their nails, and can still do so after death—be careful. Much like a jellyfish. Please catalogue and store them in the Men of Letters records. I sterilized a jar for you already._

“Oh, come on, in the kitchen! That's disgusting!”

Sam snorted and ignored him, completely unperturbed by the bag of bloody venomous fingers sitting less than a foot away from him.

“This sounds more like a chore than a gift,” Dean said, writing in all caps NOT IN THE KITCHEN YOU PSYCHO. He pushed the note to the center of the table. He really didn't want to look at the bag. Sam could deal with it. “You deal with it,” he said.

“Don't complain when someone gives you a present, and besides, it's your gift, you deal with it. I've got plans today,” Sam said.

“What? What plans? You don't have any plans.”

“I do.”

“You don't.”

“I have plans!”

“You don't or I'd have plans too, so I'd know about it,” Hah. Got him.

“I have plans that don't involve you, okay? Deal with your gross severed apology fingers.”

Dean narrowed his eyes and graciously let go of the first part of that.

“What do you mean 'apology fingers'?”

“Look, I don't know what you fought about this time, but I really don't want this to escalate,” Sam said as he got up to toss his takeout carton. He left his fork in the sink like the thoughtless, ill-mannered, spoiled younger brother he was.

“We didn't fight, and wash your fork.”

“Can't, I've got plans. Take care of the fingers. I'll see you for dinner,” and with that Sam breezed out of the room. What the hell.

Dean—ew—dealt with his gross severed apology fingers. He found the method of injecting venom was surprisingly interesting and similar to a jellyfish, as Cas had said. He spent two hours in the den lost in a rabbit hole of ocean documentaries and was entering the third hour with a youtube series of some scientist in Japan cutting up a species to see it regrow when he heard a telltale _whoosh_ down the hall and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

By the time he got to the library Cas was gone. But he had left behind another plastic bag, this one gallon-sized, that looked like it was filled with hair.

He picked up the bag with just his thumb and forefinger. There was another note, this one taped to the bag, that said, _Hair of a siren, please catalogue. If woven into a rope can be used to restrain them._ Sounded kinky in a bad way, but he guessed it was kind of useful to know. At least it wasn't in the kitchen this time.

Cas continued to leave “gifts” every few days all around the bunker for the next two weeks. Dean had decided he was cool with it because Cas actually brought some pretty neat stuff, and he refused to have any sort of apology conversation for something he didn't remember. But Sam reached his limit when he went to take a shower and found three eyes looking at him from inside a plastic bag, nestled in the shower caddy. The note explained that they needed to stay humid to retain their magical pigment.

“Cas is doing the serial killer trophy thing! Why aren't you weirded out by this!” Sam was basically screeching at him and Dean winced.

“I thought you liked serial killers? And he's acting more like a cat or something, you know, bringing stuff home from the hunt.”

Sam leveled him with his most severe bitchface.

“You have to apologize to him. Today. Whatever you did, you better say sorry because if I find one more supernatural body part or toenail clipping or jar of muck I'm going to _apologize for you_ and we're going to have a conversation about you that you really don't want us to have.”

“But I don't—”

“Enough! Now, Dean!”

Reluctantly Dean sent off a prayer. He wasn't sure if he wanted Cas to respond to it or not.

When Cas showed up he was fidgety, like his skin didn't fit quite right, and he had his hands behind his back. Before Dean could even say hi, Cas shoved a crumpled paper bag at him. Dean stared at it.

“Uh, not that I don't appreciate all the....stuff, but I'm not taking that until I know what's in it,” Dean said. He tried to make his tone polite and not like he was both morbidly curious and preemptively grossed out at what it could be.

Cas had this look that said Dean was, sometimes, a little dense. Like he was counting to five very slowly in his head. “It's just donuts. I brought you donuts.”

“Oh. Thanks, I guess.” Dean warily took the bag, then just stood there, further crumpling the top in his hands.

“So. I'm sorry,” he said because why not rip the band-aid off.

Cas raised his eyebrows and looked genuinely confused. “For what?”

“Is this a test or something? I'm sorry for whatever I did, and I'm sorry I can't remember it.”

Cas looked at him, mouth opening once, then closing, still confused. Dean sighed.

“Sam said that I fucked up and that I needed to apologize because he doesn't want you leaving gross shit around the bunker anymore, so I'm supposed to tell you I'm sorry and that whatever happened wasn't your fault so that you stop.” It came out all in a rush and he realized even as he was saying it that he should shut up.

Cas took a minute to consider him and then he _looked away_ like he was _embarrassed_.

“Ah,” Cas said delicately, “I see.”

“Well, could you help me out here? Because I certainly don't see!”

“I wasn't leaving 'gross shit' around as my own apology. You haven't upset me or done anything wrong. I was....courting you. With gifts. That I thought would also be useful. I read that a thoughtful but useful gift is the best kind. You already have a lot of knives.”

Dean felt himself immediately blush all the way up to his ears. It was all so middle school he wanted to sink into the floor and appear on the other side of the planet or maybe directly into the Mariana's trench. He had learned all about it that afternoon two weeks ago. No one would find him there. Besides, obviously, Cas. Ugh. He cleared his throat.

“Well. That's good. That I didn't do anything wrong. I really didn't fuck something up?”

Cas shook his head looking miserable.

“Okay, cool. Cool. I'm going to go rub that into Sam's face and then I'm going to come back and we can, uh. Talk about it.”

_Talk about it,_ what the hell was he even saying, he didn't even know, he just needed a minute to like, collect himself, and he definitely didn't want to talk about it but he also kind of did??

Cas nodded, still looking miserable, and Dean made a beeline out of the room. In the hallway he clutched the paper bag of donuts to his chest and tried to breath like a normal adult. _Holy shit_ , he thought, _holy shit_. Okay. He could do this. He was going to rub it in Sam's face that he didn't actually do anything wrong, he might panic eat this donut really fast, and then he was going to come back and he and Cas were. They're going to talk about. It. They're going to talk about it.

He thought of Cas's face just now, how it already looked drawn with resignation and rejection. He felt a little bad leaving him there like that. He poked his head around the corner and back into the room. Cas was still standing there, shoulders slumped, staring blankly at the table.

“Hey,” Dean said, a little too loudly but at least his voice didn't crack, “I, uh, accept all the gifts. Or whatever.”

Cas looked at him and the slow, small smile that lit up his whole self was completely unfair. Dean ducked away before he did something sappy and stupid like smile back.

**Author's Note:**

> When working on this I asked myself, is Dean too shy/nervous/a ridiculous mess?
> 
> And then I watched all those clips of him literally being a total disaster when flirted with and I had to go back in and whisper "you did this to yourself" as I increased the butterflies in his stupid beautiful stomach.


End file.
